XFX HD6850 Dual Fan CFx review – ultimate gaming for £300 ?

Today we are using one of our most powerful systems, a Core i7 970 based configuration, liquid cooled at 4.33ghz, with a Corsair AX1200 power supply – all built into a sexy Thermaltake Level 10 chassis.

Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33ghz
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65 (MS-7522)
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: Corsair Ax1200
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 7-8-7-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Hazro Ultra Sharp HZ230Wi, Dell Ultrasharp U2410 Rev A00, Iiyama Prolite E2472HDD x2 , Iiyama Prolite B2712HDS.

Other graphics cards for comparisons:
Palit GeForce GTX 460 Sonic 1GB GDDR5 (in Sli)
Inno3D GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5
HIS Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5

Software:
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Catalyst 10.12
Forceware 263.09 WHQL
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
HQV 2.0 Software
Widescreen Fixer

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter

Games:
Alien V Predator
Far Cry 2
Mafia 2
Resident Evil 5
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
Lost Planet 2
F1 2010
Colin McRae Dirt 2
Metro 2033
Lost Planet 2
Medal Of Honor SP
Battleforge
Crysis Warhead
Devil May Cry 4
Left4Dead 2
Alien V Predator
Call Of Duty: Black Ops

All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.

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